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Glite Dictionary
🤐 To withhold ↩️ To take back words
to untell

to untell

1 9.9
To try to take back words you have said
  • verb
  • /ʌnˈtɛl/
translation icon : desdecir
  • After I revealed my secret, I wished I could untell it to my friends.

Examples

  • She realized she wanted to untell her embarrassing story to the group.

  • - Then you can ruddy-well untell it and apologize.

    Island in the Sun (1957)

  • Once the news was out, there was no way to untell everyone who heard it.

Synonyms

to withdraw
vsto untell
103 3.7

To take back something you said before, especially in public

is about trying to take back something said in any context, public or private
to recant
vsto untell
  • Formal
44 8.6

Say publicly that you no longer believe something you said before

is a more general, nonformal attempt to withdraw what was revealed or said
to unsay
vsto untell
1 9.3

To take back words you used earlier

tries to take back something said, emphasizing the attempt rather than completion

Antonyms

to confirm
∞ 1.8

To show that something is true by giving evidence

How Retracted

to recant
  • Formal
44 8.6
to retract
  • Formal
41 6.0
to untell
1 9.9
to take back
61 3.5
to unsay
1 9.3

Surface Forms

untell infinitive
untelling present participle
untells third person singular
untold past
untold past participle

Morphology

untell = tell (semi-transparent) = un + tell

While built from 'un-' + 'tell', the sense 'to retract or take back what was said' is a non-standard extension of 'un-' and may not be obvious to all learners.

Etymology

Untell is made from un- meaning 'to reverse' and tell, like in undo or untie, giving the picture of trying to 'take back' words. So untell can mean trying to take back or undo something you already said.